Research into more challenging reading and writing education receives NRO grant
The interdisciplinary consortium Deliberate Genre Literacy in Secondary Education will receive almost 1 million euros from the Netherlands Initiative for Education Research (NRO). With the grant, the team will explore methods to make reading and writing education more attractive and effective through a cross-curricular and genre pedagogical perspective.
Teaching materials for vmbo-tl and havo
From Utrecht University’s Faculty of Humanities, Renske Bouwer (specialist in writing pedagogy), Jacqueline Evers-Vermeul (specialist in reading pedagogy), and Erwin Mantingh (specialist in literary education) are involved.
“We are very happy with this wonderful grant,” Jacqueline Evers-Vermeul says. “It allows us to develop and test new teaching materials for pre-vocational (vmbo-tl) and senior general secondary education (havo).” Together with Bouwer and Mantingh, she is responsible for a systematic review of international studies on genre pedagogy. “This will serve as a framework for a design of these lesson units, with which we we hope to make the teaching of reading and writing in Dutch and history more relevant and engaging.”
Better reading and writing performance in secondary education
“It is our expectation that students will achieve better on reading and writing, and learn more from the subject content,” Evers-Vermeul continues, “because the lessons will facilitate the transfer from what students learn about genres in Dutch, to how they can apply this genre knowledge and these genre skills in other contexts.”
As teacher trainers, the humanities scholars will also contribute ideas for new modules on teacher professionalisation and language-oriented subject teaching. “A postdoc will test these modules within the teacher training programmes of Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and Windesheim University of Applied Sciences in Zwolle,” Evers-Vermeul says. She expects the modules to be suitable for immediate use within history and Dutch teacher training programmes, as well as for in-service training in language-oriented subject teaching.
The project is expected to start on 1 May 2024. The Utrecht team will be strengthened further with a PhD candidate, with Ted Sanders as promotor. Other partners in the consortium are: Ninke Stukker (main applicant and project leader) and Kees de Glopper (University of Groningen), Carla van Boxtel and Jannet van Drie (University of Amsterdam), Stefan Glasbergen (Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences), Wilbert Spooren (Radboud University), and Jeroen Steenbakkers (Windesheim University of Applied Sciences).